The call was scheduled for Wednesday night and we were so excited.
Then Ashlene sent me a message saying it needed to be rescheduled. I was SO
disappointed. I told her we would go along with whatever but we were super
excited and that Ryan was coming home early from work in order to be available
for the phone call at whatever time might work.
The phone call did end up working out, thankfully. It was us, Ashlene, Michelle, Yulia, and her mom Beth. I don't remember many specifics about what we talked about. I think Michelle talked the most, guiding our conversation. She asked us questions and Yulia questions. I don't remember what the questions were though. I know we talked some about what our church callings are (Ryan and I were serving in the nursery then and we loved it!) We talked about our relationship with Cheyenne and how much contact we have. I told her how we have periods of time when we hear from her weekly if not daily, and other times when we'll go a month or more without contact. That Cheyenne had initially asked for two visits a year but that we didn't see a need to limit contact, that we left it up to Cheyenne and what her needs are at any given time. And it's okay that it fluctuates. We talked about how she might not know right now exactly how much contact she will always want to have and that's fine, contact with her could fluctuate too. We talked about our families. Their oldest son (Yulia's brother) served in the same mission as me (Santa Rosa California) and their daughter is serving in Las Vegas (where I am from.) They live an hour from my little sister. They are a family of 7 kids. (Do you see how much we had in common?) They had looked at and read every page of both our blogs, but decided not to check out our Facebook pages too much because they didn't want us to feel like we were being stocked. And we just talked.
It was comfortable and I felt peace and further confirmation that moving ahead with this was right. Ryan felt peace too. His confirmation wasn't as strong as mine though. (Interestingly, with Abby, it was the reverse, Ryan felt strongly that it was right, I felt good about it but that it was more a choice we were making.)
We ended the conversation with a plan to Skype the following Sunday night. After we got off the phone we prayed to make sure that Heavenly Father really was in agreement with this and felt that He was - we were ready to be matched if she was ready to choose us.
A little while after we got off the phone Ashlene called to let us know that they had enjoyed talking with us and that Yulia really liked us and was confident in her choice in us. We were thrilled (obviously)!
We sent in the rest of the business stuff and were finally given contact information for them (we finally learned her last name!) Sunday night we had our Skype call.
I loved getting to see her, and her parents. It was THEM - the people from my dream. Further confirmation that this was part of our Father's plan.
Yulia is very reserved so her mom talked more than she did. Actually, she wasn't on the Skype call the whole time because she got really tired and needed to get some sleep before school the next day, so we just talked with her parents a little more after that.
Again, I don't remember what all we talked about. I know they told us more about their family. Their 3 oldest children were born to them. Each pregnancy was a surprise as they struggled with fertility as well, and each pregnancy very difficult. They hadn't really sought out adoption after having those 3 but opportunities just kept coming up. We talked about things we liked doing, interests.
Beth asked what the next step was - what we needed to do to be matched or how we were feeling about it anyway (she said it much more tactfully than that.) We were surprised. We were under the impression that the match was settled (we had sent everything to the agency under that impression) and so told her we were committed. She was excited! I guess it hadn't been passed along to them that this was what we wanted. We were all happy that we were on the same page! It felt so good to be chosen, to be matched!
The phone call did end up working out, thankfully. It was us, Ashlene, Michelle, Yulia, and her mom Beth. I don't remember many specifics about what we talked about. I think Michelle talked the most, guiding our conversation. She asked us questions and Yulia questions. I don't remember what the questions were though. I know we talked some about what our church callings are (Ryan and I were serving in the nursery then and we loved it!) We talked about our relationship with Cheyenne and how much contact we have. I told her how we have periods of time when we hear from her weekly if not daily, and other times when we'll go a month or more without contact. That Cheyenne had initially asked for two visits a year but that we didn't see a need to limit contact, that we left it up to Cheyenne and what her needs are at any given time. And it's okay that it fluctuates. We talked about how she might not know right now exactly how much contact she will always want to have and that's fine, contact with her could fluctuate too. We talked about our families. Their oldest son (Yulia's brother) served in the same mission as me (Santa Rosa California) and their daughter is serving in Las Vegas (where I am from.) They live an hour from my little sister. They are a family of 7 kids. (Do you see how much we had in common?) They had looked at and read every page of both our blogs, but decided not to check out our Facebook pages too much because they didn't want us to feel like we were being stocked. And we just talked.
It was comfortable and I felt peace and further confirmation that moving ahead with this was right. Ryan felt peace too. His confirmation wasn't as strong as mine though. (Interestingly, with Abby, it was the reverse, Ryan felt strongly that it was right, I felt good about it but that it was more a choice we were making.)
We ended the conversation with a plan to Skype the following Sunday night. After we got off the phone we prayed to make sure that Heavenly Father really was in agreement with this and felt that He was - we were ready to be matched if she was ready to choose us.
A little while after we got off the phone Ashlene called to let us know that they had enjoyed talking with us and that Yulia really liked us and was confident in her choice in us. We were thrilled (obviously)!
We sent in the rest of the business stuff and were finally given contact information for them (we finally learned her last name!) Sunday night we had our Skype call.
I loved getting to see her, and her parents. It was THEM - the people from my dream. Further confirmation that this was part of our Father's plan.
Yulia is very reserved so her mom talked more than she did. Actually, she wasn't on the Skype call the whole time because she got really tired and needed to get some sleep before school the next day, so we just talked with her parents a little more after that.
Again, I don't remember what all we talked about. I know they told us more about their family. Their 3 oldest children were born to them. Each pregnancy was a surprise as they struggled with fertility as well, and each pregnancy very difficult. They hadn't really sought out adoption after having those 3 but opportunities just kept coming up. We talked about things we liked doing, interests.
Beth asked what the next step was - what we needed to do to be matched or how we were feeling about it anyway (she said it much more tactfully than that.) We were surprised. We were under the impression that the match was settled (we had sent everything to the agency under that impression) and so told her we were committed. She was excited! I guess it hadn't been passed along to them that this was what we wanted. We were all happy that we were on the same page! It felt so good to be chosen, to be matched!
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